DarleneCrossover: 1A New Start and Old Pain
by Hardwing
Summary: The first part of my DarleneCrossover Saga, in which I mixed the story of Darlene and her familyowned by Storyseeker with my own story idea, the New Awakeningsaga. The stories of this fic have no effect on the orginal saga, but may help to explore t


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I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background and Storyseeker for correcting my fics and helping me with great ideas and for the characters of his ficverse.

****

1. A NEW START AND OLD PAIN

Edmund: "I have . . .seen wounds like these on the battlefield before. She is amazingly strong, but I fear . An injury like this is . . . usually fatal. I am truly, truly . . . sorry."

Hudson [speaking to Deborah]: Ye canna die! Ye promised me! Ye can hang on until the sunrise, love, and all will be fine. Ye have ta hang on!"

Deborah: "Beloved . . . I have always . . .loved ye . . .I will . . .always . . . love ye. Ye are forever . . .in . . .my . .heart."

Hudson [as she dies]: "And ye in mine, always, my love..."

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****Alliances****

Goliathand Hudson glided about the sacked ruin which had once been their home, they saw the crumbled stone which once had been their clan.

"No..." Goliath whispered while his heart crumbled even so.

****_Awakening_****

Goliath takes the Phoenix Gate from his belt. "_Deflagrate muri tempi et intervallia_!" He speaks and open a fiery gate in the air, then he throws the Phoenix Gate into it on what it vanishes.

Elisa looked on him, surprised by his strange behaviour "Why did you do that?"

Angela joined in "Without a mind to direct the Gate, it will be forever lost in time." she noticed

Goliath nodded with satisfaction "Yes, and beyond the reach of all who desire it."

****_Future Tense_****

****

02.01.98. 22:41 Destine Mansion

Demona laughed, looking on the Phoenix Gate in her healthy claw. 

"Phase 1," she said and then recited, "Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia." 

After she had spoken the spell for activating the gate, she vanished anywhere into the time-stream.

****

13.08.1997; 15:43; A stonemason outside Washington:

"Okay, okay." the owner of the firm told the person outside the door who impatiently pushed the doorbell. "Calm down."

He opened the door and discovered a young woman of about 30, standing in front of him. She wore a long black cape, a black hat and sunglasses.

  
"You are the owner of this factory who produces stone quarters?" she asked with a voice, sharp enough to cut diamonds and without wasting time on any kindness.

Oswald Sprenkler, a man over forty who was indeed the owner of this factory, nodded.

"The best on the whole continent," the man assured her. 

The way this woman was suited, he knew there was the possibility to earn money.

"I've heard so," the woman replied coldly and a shiver went through Oswald's bones. "I have an order for you. 500 stone quarters, 4 by 4 metres, delivered in four months to an address that I'll tell you four days before I require them."

The man looked at her as if she was mad. 

"Listen this is..." 

The woman grabbed something in her coat pocket and gave the man a cheque. 

The man's jaw dropped.

"I think we can do business," the man answered. 

"I thought so," The woman replied, "but remember your terms. I need them at the called time exactly on the point. Time is crucial, so I hope you understand this."

Oswald nodded. He would have to hire new workers, but this didn't matter, not by this sum and a part of him told him that he'd better not disappoint this woman. He was just going to ask her after her name, but she was gone already.

****

01.03.994; 14:03; Castle Wyvern, Scotland: 

Two soldiers stood guard at the battlements and looked down at the large plain.

"I have no idea what we shall guard here!" the first complained. "The land is peaceful." 

"There are rumors that the Vikings gather in the northlands to attack again." the second explained seriously. "If this happens then we will have more than enough trouble."

"Nay," the first soldier replied. "They haven't attacked for years now, they surely won't this year. Come, let us go in. It is too cold and I'm hungry." 

"If the Captain will hear of this, he will surely grow Mad." the other soldier replied.

"He is out with the princess to inspect the outer towns," the first soldier explained. "No reason to fear the Captain of the gargoyles now."

The other soldier was convinced and so they went off in the warmth of the castle, never having noticed the person which had studied them in the shadows.

When she was sure they were gone, the woman stepped into the light of the sun. She wore clothes more fitting for a man, since she found the garments had stunned her flexibility and her long red hair was bound into a long plait.

Anyone who really looked at her, maybe heard her speak, would have noticed the slight resemblance between her and a female gargoyle, resting in her stone-sleep on her perch on the highest tower directly under her leader and *true* love. 

Indeed, nobody did so and even if the humans in this castle paid the beasts too few a minds to truly notice something like that then they surely would never consider that one of them had something in common with these beasts.

"Fools," the woman murmured. 

~ So they protected us during the day. ~ The woman asked herself ~ I would rather let myself be guarded by a blind dog! ~

But soon, in one month, the soldiers would notice that the Vikings indeed came again, this time in an even larger mass and in three months... 

The woman sighed.

~ Not now. ~

She stood in front of a gargoyle called the Clever Sister by the clan. The gargoyle had two long horns rising from her forehead and in a woman's eyes, a much too modest tunic.

Slowly, she took the machine, which didn't fit in this time, from her bag and activated it. A laser came out of the machine and scanned the sleeping gargoyle, taking the information it needed to create a three dimensional picture on the monitor. 

The woman pushed a button and saved this data like she had done already, both on this day and the day before with half of the clan and would do so with the rest of the clan soon enough.

"Phase2,"

~ Soon. ~

****

21.12.1997; 10:43; A warehouse owned by Nightstone Unlimited, somewhere outside of New York:

The woman, dressed in dirty jeans, a white skirt and a black leather jacket, stood in front of a rather unspectacular machine. There was a large grab arm in the part of the hall where 500 well made stone quarts rested. She took the machine she had used to scan the gargoyles 1000 years before and removed a disk out of it. She then entered the disk in the large machine and set it alive.

Slowly, the large grab arm moved to a stone quart, took it and laid it on the slab in front of the woman. The career put the quarter into a chamber, which was open at one side and stopped when the open door closed. There was a large beam of laser-light coming out of the only small window and a sound like that of hissing steam, the chamber then opened at the other side and a fog of stone, made into dust, flew out of it. 

The fog hadn't settled down yet when the career went alive again and showed how the block of stone had changed. Coming nearer, the woman studied it seriously, even touched it and noticed that it was still hot, and finally allowed herself a small smile. 

She stood in front of a statue, the statue of a male gargoyle with a long crest above his head who was supposed to be death, killed in a terrible massacre 1000 years ago.

~ Perfect! ~ The woman thought, her smile increasing, hearing already the sound of another stone quart being transported to the career, like another 100 would be in the next hours.

"Phase 3," she whispered to herself and grabbed in her jacket, a magic talisman with the picture of a Phoenix on it.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia."

After she had spoken this spell, a ball of fire appeared and took her wherever and whenever she wanted to be.

****

03.01.98; 13:43; Castle Wyvern, Xanato's business room: 

Xanatos sat down and bowed his head over a business report. 

~ Nightstone is making trouble ~ he noticed, studying the growing of Nightstone on the European markets. ~ Why can't you just attack me directly and kill me? Why humiliate me in business? ~

Simple cruelty he supposed.

Suddenly, he sensed a slight wind in front of his desk and looked ahead just in time to notice a small speck of light in the air, growing into a large ball of fire. When the ball vanished, Demona in her gargoyle form, stood in front of him, aiming with a small laser gun on his head.

"One move and I'll kill you," she explained and Xanatos noticed how she put something, looking rather familiar to the Phoenix Gate, in her bag on her belt.

~ I should be more carefully with my wishes. ~

She was in gargoyle form, but Xanatos didn't ask why, surely because of some sort of spell.

"Demona, what do you want?" he asked as relaxed as possible, asking himself if he would be able to reach the gun in the drawer of his desk in time... He doubted it.

"Your assistance." 

This came as such a surprise that he could only just stare at her.

"You know, asking for help from someone has a much better possibility of success when they're not threatening the person's life?" the billionaire asked her and much to his surprise, she lowered her gun while throwing an icy glare on him.

Xanatos briefly considered calling Owen, but he was not in this part of the castle at the moment and he doubted that his servant would change into Puck just for him.

"You are allied to Goliath's clan, I have heard?" the immortal asked and Xanatos nodded, folding his hands. "Good, I want you to prove this to them and me, by helping me."

Xanatos frowned slightly. "I don't think Goliath and the rest of the clan have the same view in what you call help." 

Demona's eyes became red for a short time and Xanatos heard her snarling, but then she relaxed a bit and smiled viciously. 

"In this thing, I think they might agree with me..." she explained. "I plan to bring the ones back who died in the massacre."

Xanatos looked on the human turned gargress crucially. "You can't change the time with the Phoenix Gate Demona and you know it." 

Demona grinned, giving him a superior look. "I won't change a bit of time, just betray it." 

Xanatos lifted a brow. By any other person, he would have doubted this, but something in her voice made him sure that she was indeed speaking the truth.

"If you can do so, why do you need me?" Xanatos asked.

"To inform Goliath and the others and..." the immortal was silent for some seconds, "for some other reasons."

Xanatos looked on the immortal gargoyle. He had no reason to trust her, as she was a danger to him, his son, his wife and humanity in general, but somehow he sensed that wiping humanity from the planet wasn't her priority now.... besides by working with her he might be able to hold a look on her.

"Alright, agreed. What shall I do?" 

"Come to the Great Hall and don't disturb me until I speak to you." Demona explained and after taking the gate anew and speaking the spell, she vanished as fast as she had come.

Xanatos leaned back in his chair and looked ahead. He knew this would be a long day.

Taking his cell-phone, he dialed to Owen.

"Owen here." a wooden voice replied.

"Owen, I need you in the Great Hall," Xanatos ordered. "Demona is there. Don't attack her if she doesn't attack you first, just watch. I'll come too."

"I understand Sir." The wooden servant replied and ended the connection.

~ No my friend you don't ~ Xanatos, who knew his servant long enough to hear the tremble in his voice, ~ because neither do I. ~

So, deep in thought, he stood up and went to the Great Hall.

****

12.06.994; 08:03; Castle Wyvern, Scotland: 

"Attack," Hakon screamed above the plain of Wyvern and his army, even when reduced by the fight three nights before, ran up to the castle, ready to defy the defenders this time.

The defenders ran, surprised by the sudden noises of battle to their posts, readying their bows to fire. Their shock when the bows' strings snapped was indescribable.

One soldier, who three months before had laughed about the threat of a Viking invasion, was about to draw his sword when the second largest surprise of this morning suddenly appeared. Appearing in the form of a large fireball, in the air in front of him, out came was... the beasts' leader's second and wife?! 

~ Why isn't she stone? ~ He asked himself.

"Hey beast, you..." he didn't speak any further, since the gargress had slapped him around his face with her tail and turned around to the nearest gargoyle, a beaked one with one deformed right horn, in his stone-sleep. She grabbed him, spoke some words that the soldier, now lying on the earth, could not recognize and vanished again in a ball of fire. 

Just a second later, the ball of fire and the red-haired gargoyle appeared again, placing seemingly the same statue back on his place, just that this gargoyle had slightly changed its position. She then jumped to the next perch, grabbed the sleeping gargoyle, spoke the words again and vanished anew just to come back a second later, dropping the statue on its place and beginning anew. 

The soldier followed this with the greatest surprise and totally unable to recognize any sense in this. So shocked was he that he didn't notice several other female Gargoyles, all of which looked exactly like the female in front of him, doing exactly the same thing. They each grabbed onto one of their sleeping kin, vanished and then reappeared only to do the same thing again and again until they had done the same with all the Gargoyles and then disappeared again, this time for good. 

Just then, the Vikings stormed into the courtyard and took the guard's attention away from them. 

~ How could they come in so fast? ~ were his last thoughts before a Viking axe ended his life.

****

03.01.98; 14:59; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall: 

Xanatos looked on Demona when she laid down the gargoyle statue on the floor of the Great Hall. He had studied this for the whole last hour, how she, one by one, took 100 gargoyle statues out of the past and into the present. When he had entered, there were already 50 gargoyles standing there to his amazement, and now there were over 150 gargoyles statues, males and females, hatchlings, elders and even some beasts were now gathered in the hall.

Demona turned her head to Xanatos and his servant standing beside him.

"I'm done with this for now," she explained.

"Good," Xanatos noted. "I doubt that the hall has enough space for more. Goliath never told me that your clan was... _is_ so large." 

Demona looked angrily on the human. "It wasn't," she admitted. "_His_ clan wasn't so large, but I have added the gargoyles of the clan I had in Moray to this. So there are over 50 more gargoyles than his clan had back then."

Xanatos noticed Demona's pronouncing on the fact that this was Goliath's clan and decided not to mention it. 

"Wouldn't Goliath have noticed that there were crumbled statues in Wyvern when he came back, Canmore also, during the time of the massacre in Moray?" He had discovered all this by himself. The only possible time when Demona could have taken these with her in time was the day of the massacre. 

"I have replaced them with ordinary statues," Demona explained shortly. "He won't notice anything because he hadn't..."

Demona stopped her explanations and screamed in pain. Xanatos, unknowing what was happening, looked at Owen.

"The spell she has cast to stay gargoyle by day is wearing off," the human-turned Fay explained and observed Demona's transformation into a human.

Xanatos followed Owen's eyes and noticed the last bit of Demona's wings vanishing into her back before a young human woman stood before them in the middle of the stone gargoyles in a far too less an outfit and breathing heavily.

"Demona?" Xanatos asked her. "Or better yet… Dominique, is everything alright?" 

Demona glared on him, hating the fact that these two humans had seen her change, heard her screaming in pain, but managed to control herself. She knew she should have paid more attention on the time she had used the spell already, since the spell worked only for a defined time, plus the spell had lived from her power.

How long had she used the spell now to gain the strength for replacing her brothers and sisters with ordinary stone statues…Hours, days, months? She hadn't slept in all this time where she had lived between the time itself and didn't use a watch since those was needless to her. 

"Demona," she snapped, correcting him on her name, "and yes I am alright human." She glared now just on the human turned Fay. 

Then she turned her attention back to Xanatos. "As for you, I need a place where the eggs of the Moray clan will be secure," she ordered. "The ground shall be laid out soft and there has to be a hollow."

"I will see to it," Owen, who knew how a gargoyle rookery had to be made, said. "It will be ready at the latest at 16:30 in the guest room." 

Demona nodded. She hated this Fay, but at least he was efficient.

"I will come to you later to instruct you on what else to do."

With this she grabbed the Phoenix Gate from her belt. "Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia." 

****

11.05.97; 22:41; Sevarius's Lab and mansion somewhere in Maine: 

Sevarius studied the facts on the computer screen, smiling that all was going so well with his little operation, when Demona stormed into his room.

"We have to talk." 

Sevarius looked on the gargress, totally shocked. 

"How did you pass security?" He asked while he shut down the PC, as there was no need that his temporary employer needed to learn on what he was working. Indeed, she would most likely tear him to shreds if she found out.

"This isn't your business Sevarius," the red haired gargress snarled and neared the desk, placing her sharp talons on it "I've got a job for you."

"Ah, so… how might I deepen our business relationship?" The doctor asked Demona in a greasy happy voice that she knew all too well and hated in a way she couldn't describe.

"Can your clone-tubes create eggs?" Demona asked coldly. 

Sevarius shook his head. "No. To create eggs, the tubes would need a special modification." 

"How long do you need for this and how long would you need to create an egg?" Demona asked. 

"Three months for the modifications of an ordinary clone tube and the time to let the eggs grow depends on the fact how mature you want to have the little things," Sevarius explained.

"Six months away from hatching," Demona answered.

"Oh, I could even so let them mature until shortly before the hatching."

"Six months before the hatching," Demona repeated, snarling as her tail swung around dangerously.

Sevarius took the note and nodded. 

"I would need a week to produce such an egg," he explained. "Without any special modifications?" 

"They will be soulless, but I will care for that," Demona told the surprised doctor, "but I have a special assignment for you. You won't inform me about the progresses or any problems until I contact you again and ask you about it."

"I... I don't understand..." Sevarius noted.

Demona's eyes blazed red.

"You don't have to understand, but to follow my orders," she snarled. "I'll come in three months with the samples, be ready!"

With this, the gargoyle turned around, went to the door and vanished out of Sevarius sight.

This came unexpected for him and it threw him back in his schedule, but he knew that it was no good idea to disappoint his employer and he couldn't effort her wrath... yet.

****

23.08.1057; 09:05; Scotland, Rookery of the clan Moray: 

Demona, in her human form, leaned over an egg, using a syringe with a microscopically point, to take the needed cell samples. Finally, she had already taken the ninth and last sample and stood up, looking around. 

There wasn't much time for her. Soon, at midday maybe, Canmore who had surely heard from a human traitor where she had sent her clan to during the day, would order his soldiers to smash her clan and even sooner, she herself or better yet… her past self, would appear to replace the gargoyles with ordinary statues.

She knew she had been a damned fool to trust Canmore, but what else could she have done? Macbeth had betrayed her...

Even after all this time, she still felt the stab in her heart, the rage and the pain when she thought about that night back then... or some hours ago.

~ Damn you Macbeth ~ Demona cursed. ~ Why didn't you leave me a choice? We could have defeated him! ~

But that was the past, she had done what she had been forced to do and now she would see to it that no gargoyle would die through the human's hands today. 

She placed the blood-sample carefully in her bag and looked around in the cave. Her whole clan was gathered here, except for herself who waited on Macbeth on the route she knew he would take when his castle would fall.

Her whole clan had gathered here and she saw from their stony faces that they weren't happy about this, but they had followed her orders without any complaining since they knew their leader's temper and trusted her decision.

She went to a hatchling, one of 7, who stood in the middle of the group. In the night, he had long white hair and a brown-grayish skin like his fathers, but his eyes were green like his mother's and he had always been special to her, even when she had never shown him how much. Slowly, she touched his stone face, rubbing her knuckles against his brow, a gesture of deep affection she had never given him back then, something that she had regretted and would regret in the following night when her past self knelt above his shattered remains.

Correction… above the shattered remains of a statue she had made from him. She knew now that the remains hadn't been real, just her pain and this pain would be forever in her heart, the pain to come to the cave where she had promised the hatchlings that they'd be safe, the pain while feeling the stone, the knowledge to have disappointed them all.

Demona turned around, no longer able to bear the pain.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia." 

She vanished and left this place of grief and despair behind her, but at the same time it stayed in her heart.

****

26.08.97; 22:41; Sevarius's Lab and mansion somewhere in Maine: 

Demona entered the lab, placing the samples on Sevarius's desk and looking around.

Where was that blasted human?! 

"Ah Miss Destine!" Sevarius said from behind her back.

Demona turned around, not letting him notice her surprise. 

"Is your tube ready?" she demanded to know.

"Yes," he responded, "ready to breed the little darlings." 

With this, he took up the samples.

"Good," Demona said and looked at the nearest tube, "This one?" 

Sevarius nodded, as he put the samples in different test tubes to let them grow. He was concentrating on this so much that he didn't notice Demona placing a stone with some Indianan looking signs on it, into the cloning tube.

"What are you doing?" Sevarius asked when he saw what Demona had done.

"A stone in the tube won't disturb the growing-cycle will it?" She asked coolly.

Sevarius shook his head.

"No, but might I ask why?" 

Demona's eyes became slits. 

"This stone will stop any soul to slip into the growing egg," she explained. "I merely want copies of the original's flesh, not their souls as well."

Sevarius nodded even though he didn't understand. He didn't believe in magic, but if his employer did then he had no reason to doubt on this… at least not in the reach of her ears.

Demona placed two more of the stones on Sevarius's desk. 

"Goliath and his clan might come in four months or more and order you to make soulless copies of three special gargoyles for them," she explained. "Lay these stones in the tubes so there should be no problems. If there are then tell me, you know my private number."

Without waiting for Sevarius's answer, she turned around and left the room.

****

10.07.971; 23:43; Scotland, Castle Wyvern, Weapon-chamber: 

The second of the Wyvern clan checked the weapons one last time. She had seen all the young warriors choosing and taking their weapons and was ready to join her mate and clan leader, but still she felt something eating at her mind. 

She moved her claw through her long fair hair and then looked on her green skinned claw until she adjusted her armor. Somebody who knew her, her mate for example, would recognize these signs that she was worried. 

This was the first real battle that the young warriors had to face and despite all that she had taught them, everything she knew about warfare, she still feared that not all would survive this night.

The second was going to take up her dagger when she suddenly felt wind blowing on her back and turned around. First, there was a little spark in the air, which then enlarged into a ball of fire and when it vanished, it left a single figure standing between the second and the door.

At first she couldn't believe what she saw, while she drew her sword slightly out of its sheath. In front of her stood the red-haired young warrior that she had just spoken with, but she seemed to be much older, in her best years it seemed. Their eyes met and a part in the teacher grew cold since she saw pain and hardness in her pupil's eyes of a sort that she had never seen before.

"What are you?" The second asked her.

The time-traveler ignored her, took a scroll from her belt and read some strange words from it.

Suddenly, the second felt something on her, a tingle on her skin that she couldn't describe. Then, her shadow seemed to grow.

"By the dragon..."

She didn't notice that the scroll in the red-haired one's claw had crumbled to dust.

The shadow had now grown into a complete duplicate of her, equal in length, skin and clothing and to her total shock it grabbed the dagger on the table and went out the door, seemingly without noticing her.

"What sorcery is this?" The second demanded to know from the creature, which looked like her pupil, drawing her sword.

Her former pupil wasn't interested in such however and with a hard foot kick she knocked the sword out of the teacher's claw.

This shocked the teacher even more as she looked, amazed, on the red haired gargoyle. If this was her, then her skills had indeed improved a lot. 

"Sorcery which saves your life," the time-traveler explained and grabbed the teacher's arm violently with her right claw, while she held her talisman in the left.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia." 

The world around the teacher and her older pupil vanished in a wall of fire and when the fire vanished, the teacher noticed that they weren't in the weapon chamber anymore, but seemingly in another chamber of the castle.

The teacher dragged herself free of the other gargoyle's claw and looked angrily at her.

"What is all this?" the teacher demanded furiously. "Where are we?" 

The flame-headed one didn't even try to answer and instead pushed the older gargoyle so powerfully that she fell backwards on the soft bed.

"Wait here and greet Hudson from me." She ordered and then grabbed her talisman.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia." 

With this, she vanished and left an angry gargoyle snarling behind.

~ How dare her! ~ 

To say that the teacher was furious would be an understatement. Never, since the time she had learned from her own teacher as a youngster, had she ever been treated in this way!

Angrily, she shred parts of the bed under her into rags while standing up.

~ If that was truly you redhead, ~ the teacher thought angrily, ~then I seemingly have to teach you again on how to respect your elders. ~

With that thought, she looked around the room she was in. It seemed like one of the castle rooms to be sure, but she felt it was somehow strange. She then noticed the door that was seemingly made of massive oak. 

The red-haired lass had told... ordered her to stay here and wait to greet someone called Hudson, but she would rather change into a rabbit than do so.

Angrily, she went to the door and kicked it open, unaware of what, or more precisely who, awaited her behind it.

.**23.12.1997; 15:11; A warehouse owned by Nightstone Unlimited, somewhere outside of New York,**

Demona, in her human form, looked around in the empty fabric hall. From the mass of stone quarters lying there, there were just a dozen left, as all others had been consumed to betray the time and to bring life where no one had hoped on such anymore.

Five clans were alive again. Her two old ones of Wyvern and Moray, then the clans of Edinburgh and the Isle of Eye, of which most had been destroyed and later joined her clan in Moray back then and Lothian's clan that had been destroyed years before, and then Paris....

She knew it had been a good idea to use her first illusion scroll on Valejan and then his mate. It was on every case easier than to hold the oath she had given him when he was dying... correction, his illusion when it seemed to die, when she promised him to lead his clan.

She had brought back so many, yet there was still someone else, a special Gargoyle whom she would bring back soon, very special.

"Darlene..." Demona whispered softly and allowed herself to dwell in the memories of happier times.

****

07.11.1928; 23:14; over the streets New York

~ Curse all the Humans ~ Demona thought to herself, which was what she had been doing now for the past 800 years or so!

She had travelled to New York because she had seen newspapers with articles about people who had come from America, speaking about seeing a huge flying monster that looked like the Devil himself.

Since her kind had been called the _Devil's children_ on more than one occasion. Demona decided that the opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, it wasn't as if she had anything else better to do. One of the worst things about being immortal was that she had all the time in the world and not enough things to do it in.

She soared through the sky like an Archangel, swooping and diving through the endless pathways of the buildings, hoping and praying to whatever God watched over her kind that he might spare her the torment of living alone.

Demona glided past another building and slammed straight into what, she thought, must have been a brick wall. After that, she knew no more. 

****

08.11.1920; 00:32; an old abandoned warehouse

Demona moaned, as she sat up and reached out her hand to touch her forehead. ~ What in blazes hit me? ~ 

"Are you alright?" a deep voice sounded above her. 

Demona sharply looked up and saw to her amazement and delight, a handsome male Gargoyle who looked just about her age. Well… at least the age that she looked like anyway.

He was about eight feet tall with a build much like Goliath's had been. His hide was a golden red colour that shone like fire. His wings were also similar to Goliath's except for the colour and instead of the single claws that Goliath had had at the end of his wings; this one had claw fingers like hers. He didn't have any horn ridges or knee spikes. To be quite frank, he was a rather plain looking Gargoyle, but he was still very pleasing to the female Gargoyle's eyes. 

He had a short crop of white-blonde hair that gleamed in the moonlight and ended in small curls, that framed his delicate face. But the most attractive and enchanting part about him was his eyes! She had never seen a Gargoyle, any Gargoyle, with eyes like his before. They were bright blue and seemed to shine and sparkle, like they were filled with stars and the way they stared at her made Demona feel loved and cared for, something that she hadn't felt in a long, long time. 

Despite feeling eager to talk, to ask about who he was and about his clan… etc. Demona was completely at a loss for words and could only manage a simple, "hello?" 

The welcomed stranger tilted his head at her and responded, "greetings beautiful one! I must say that it is indeed a welcome sight to meet another one of my kind. Especially one as beautiful as you." 

Despite her reputation for being hard as a rock and cold as ice, Demona felt a hot flush rise up into her cheeks. "Thank you," she whispered and then took a look around, "where are we?" 

"You are in my home. Well, my home for the time being that is. It is just a quiet place where I hang my hat, as the Humans say, one of many." 

Demona took another look around the place that he called home. The place was a dump, no question about it, but she decided not to say anything. 

"It's… very nice" she spoke through her teeth. 

The male Gargoyle smirked at her "you're not a very convincing liar, I'm afraid!" 

Demona was ready to bite back the remark, but in the end she saw the funny side of it and rewarded him with a smirk of her own. She hadn't laughed in ages, except for when she was mocking the present hunters who were hunting her and her kind. 

"I am called Demona! Who are you?" 

The golden red one looked at her curiously, "I don't have a name. Last time I checked, it was not in our kind's nature to take names?" 

Inside, Demona felt a joyful glee come up inside of her. She had finally found a handsome male Gargoyle who had not been corrupted by Human beliefs and desires. "It was not of my choosing. I was given this title by… a former ally who later betrayed me and my second clan." 

"Second?" 

Demona froze for a second and blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill. "The clan that I was born into was destroyed by Humans. I spent a few years on my own, before a man, who called himself the Hunter, came and began hunting and slaughtering our kind. Eventually, I gathered up the survivors of our kind who had survived his plague of death and formed another clan with them. Years later, I formed an alliance with another Human who swore to protect us and keep us forever safe so I agreed." 

She took a deep breath and waited a few seconds before continuing. 

"We managed to defeat the Hunter, twice! But each time that we defeated him, someone, who believed in the Hunter's mission to eradicate our race, came and took on his mask to carry on the hunt. Eventually, I suppose our ally must have had enough and I overheard him, planning with his advisers on how to betray us to the Hunter. So I took my clan and escaped, but the Hunter found us anyway and he massacred the lot of us!" 

Her last words came out, hard and bitter. She remembered the night, when she had woken up and the Lady Gruoch had told her about her clan member's deaths by Canmore's hands. She had searched the land for them on the following night, before finally coming across their shattered bodies and swore that one-day, she would avenge them! 

She was so absorbed in her own reverie that she didn't notice the Gargoyle make his way, across the room, towards her until he put his arms and wings around her. "I'm sooo sorry," he said and held her close to him. 

Demona's first instinct was to throw him off and fight, but… she felt so safe and warm in his arms and wings. She rested her head on his shoulder and held him back as he rubbed her back, as a meaning of goodwill. For the first time in centuries… Demona relaxed! 

"Thank you" she purred, making the male turn an even deeper shade of red. "What about you? Where's your clan?" 

The blush instantly left his face and for a couple of moments, he looked sad and then angry. "I have no clan! The humans killed them all! Our clan was nesting on an old abandoned warehouse; I left to do some patrolling. The sun rose before I could return so I spent the day somewhere else and when I returned… our clan was no more." 

This story sounded unnaturally familiar to her as she recalled what story she had planned for Goliath when she returned to the castle after the massacre. But the surprise had been for her when she discovered her lover and the remaining members of her clan, all encased in stone. Thus, they had remained for over 900 years with her as their guardian, still waiting for their eventual awakening. 

"So… you've been living on your own since then?" She asked. 

"Yes. It's not so bad once you get used to it." 

Demona made her decision right there and then! 

****

08.11.1920; 01:02; Demona's mansion

"I'm not sure if I should do this?" 

She looked over at her travelling partner and gave him a hard look. "No one should have to live in filthy, vermin infested places like you do! I have a beautiful home, that's fit for a king and since you and I are the only ones of our kind here. It makes perfect sense that we should move in together and before you say anything else. Let me make one thing perfectly clear! **I WILL NOT TAKE NO AS AN ANSWER, OKAY?!**" 

He looked at her and just nodded. 

They glided for an about another half-hour before finally coming across a huge mansion that was completely hidden behind four stone walls in seclusion. 

Demona's new friend gave off a low whistle as he stared at the impressive architecture. The mansion was almost completely filled with stone Gargoyles. 

~ Let's hope that these Hunters of Demona's don't come looking for us ~ he thought. ~ If they do and they see this place then there's gonna be Hell to pay because those statues are a dead give-away. ~ 

He crouched, as he and Demona landed on her balcony and she took a key out of her pouch that hung from her loincloth. She placed the key into the keyhole and unlocked the door. "Welcome to my humble home!" 

Demona and her guest entered her house and for a few moments, he was speechless as he looked at the interior design of the house. There were all sorts of items and talismans, laid out everywhere like decorative ornaments. There were also paintings and photographs, showing scenes of wars and other horrific chapters in human history. 

~ She must hate the Humans something awful? ~

In truth, it was a nice set up, though a little gothic for his taste and the pictures of war and human bigotry didn't help matters. But the sight of this beautiful angel, whom he had literally bumped into, more than made up for that! Suddenly he noticed the time. There were only a few more hours until sunrise. 

"Forgive me beautiful one? But the sun will be up in a few hours time and I want to start and finish my patrols as soon as possible." 

"Patrols?" Demona enquired, curiously. 

"Yes. Every night, I go out and patrol this city and help out where I can in case anyone is in need of my aid." 

Demona eyes suddenly flared red and she actually growled at him. "**YOU PROTECT THE HUMANS? AFTER ALL THAT THEY HAVE DONE TO US, YOU HAVE THE ORDASITY TO CONTINUE PROTECTING THEM?!**"

The male looked at her in surprise and just answered, calmly, "of course! If I were to give up a Gargoyle's purpose for living then what would I be? It has been in the nature of Gargoyles to protect since the dawn of time! If I were to give that up then I would no longer be a Gargoyle; I'd be… nothing. Besides, the humans have taken away everything that I hold dear and I'll be damned if I'm going to let them take what little I have left, like my honour!"

She had no answer to this. It was obvious that he had no great love for Humans, but he wasn't about to give up their race's time honoured tradition of protection. 'Maybe he also does it so that he can honour the memory of his clan,' she thought. Since the destruction of both her clans, she had been more obsessed with avenging them than honouring their memory except for when she returned to Wyvern every year, lit a candle and sung that human melody. But nothing would ever convince her to start protecting the species that had nearly destroyed all of her people. 

He turned and started to leave. 

"Wait!" She called "I'm sorry, but… its just that I've had so much bad experience with humans. I tend to act, before I think. I'm sorry." 

He turned back and looked at her with a look of pity "it's okay. I guess the humans have made us all a little edgy?" 

Demons grinned, "so does that mean that you will be staying with me?" 

He rolled his eyes and looked up for a moment, considering his options. True, this was a nice pad. Waaaaay better than the one he was living in right now and he would have to be a fool, not to want to live in it with a beautiful female of his kind. 

"Okay! I'll do it!" 

Demona resisted from leaping with joy and said "good!" 

16.02.1928; 22:51; Over the streets of New York

"Come on my darling, your slowing down!" 

Demona soared through the sky, quietly imagining throttling her new mate's neck. She loved him with all her heart and soul, but he could be incredibly annoying sometimes. Though, to be honest, she had been gliding a lot slower these past few nights and she had once been one of the fastest gliders in her clan. 

The only time when her gliding hadn't been at it's best was when…. Demona suddenly stopped in mid air in shock. 

~ It can't be ~ she thought. 

She ran her hands over her flat stomach and silently wondered about the possibility. The only other time when she had lost some speed was when she had been with egg. Could it be? They had passed the mating season last month with incredible joy, but to their surprise and grief she did not have an egg this time, but now...

Demona decided that she would have to find out as soon as possible. 

"Demona! My darling, are you alright?" 

"Huh… yes, I'm fine. Just give me a moment to catch up, okay?" 

Her friend and newfound mate nodded and slowed down, long enough, for her to catch up. "Are you sure that you're fine? You don't look it!" 

"Yes, quite sure! I just need to get some rest." 

"Okay!" 

They slowly glided back to their home and Demona's mate, as he had no name and did not wish for one, helped her down and carried her in. "I can walk, you know?" Demona said "I only said that I was a little tired, not dying!" 

Her mate grinned, "since when have I ever needed an excuse for carrying you, my darling?" 

Demona grinned back at him "true" she answered then silenced as he kissed her. 

"Mmmmmmm…" she moaned as his paw moved up to her chest and gently squeezed and caressed her breast and nipple. 

~ Damn it! ~ She thought ~ why must he always make our partings so difficult for me? ~ 

"Forgive me my love," she spoke, "but I really do have something important to do now." 

He looked disappointed for a moment, but gradually smiled and let her down. "Will you be long?" 

"No. There's just something that I want check then I'll come back to you, I promise!" 

He grinned, sinisterly, at her and kissed her one last time, his paws trailed down her spine, one of them went to her tail and the other to her buttocks, where he proceeded to gently squeeze and fondle them. Just as Demona thought she was about to come, he immediately let go of her and smirked. "I'll be waiting," he said and turned around and went to wait in their room. 

Demona resisted the incredible urge to tackle him to the floor and make love to him right there and then. If anything, he was damn good at torturing her with those paws and that tongue of his. 

~ Damn him ~ she smiled and then quickly turned the other way and ran to her workroom to do what she came home for. Well… one of the things that she came home for anyway! 

She practically smashed the door to her workroom open and instantly began grabbing all the items that she needed for her spell. A small copper jar with Gaelic signs and symbols on it, a dagger, some magical herbs that she had forgotten all about and some powder grounded from the bones of a pregnant beast. 

She placed the jar on the table and held out her right paw over it, she then took the ceremonial dagger and proceeded to slit her wrist. She waited until the jar was half full with her blood and began chanting in Latin. The spell was short, so it didn't take long; she spoke the incantation and then took a pinch full of the powder and sprinkled it into the jar. 

There was a sudden whoosh in the air and the dark liquid in the jar started to glow purple then blue and then purple again. Demona waited a few more seconds before her blood, in the jar, had settled on its new purple tone. When it did, she was overjoyed, the spell was positive… She was with egg! 

"MY LOVE," She screamed and ran out the door. She ran on all fours to get to her room where she found him waiting for her, in bed. ~ Typical ~ she smirked, but didn't complain. Not when she saw his gorgeous and naked body, shining in the moonlight. 

"What is it?" he asked, concerned. 

Demona looked at him, licking her lips in desire for a moment before remembering. "I'm with egg," she announced! 

Her mate just stared at her for a while, his mouth, wide open and his eyes bulging before finally. "You're… you're pregnant?!" 

Demona shrugged "that is the human term for it. Yes." 

"Oh… great," then his eyes rolled up and he fell back onto the bed. Demona instantly ran to his side and began gently slapping his face to awaken him. After a while, she just quit with the gentle slapping and landed him a big one. 

"OWWW," he yelled, rubbing his face, whilst glaring at his beautiful, but darlingly aggravating mate. Demona just smirked and asked him "feeling better?" 

He then remembered what it was what she told him that made him faint. "You're with egg," he asked again? 

Demona frowned at him "yes and if I have to tell you a thousand times then so be it. I… AM… WITH… EGG!" 

He blinked a couple of times and then jumped up from the bed, grabbed her by the waist and twirled her around the room, shouting in joy. "I'M GONNA BE A DADDY!" 

Demona fumed for a bit about being twirled about like a hatchling, but he soon had her laughing and kissing him in happiness. 

At long last, her life was starting to turn out all right. 

****

04.06.1938; 21:36; Demona's mansion:

"I'm not sure about this, my darling" her mate questioned, concerned. 

Demona looked at her mate on mock exasperation. "Don't give me that, I laid the egg years ago, so I'm perfectly healthy and I'm only going out for one night with you, so I'm positive that the egg will be fine without us for just one night!" 

Her mate continued to look worried, but he had long since learnt by now that it was pointless to try and sway her when her mind was made up. The last time he tried, he had actually tried being forceful and threatened her that if she didn't listen to him and do as he said then he would have to get rough with her. He even challenged her to a duel to prove it. 

He had ended up with a broken nose, a bruised eye and several broken ribs. ~ Thank God for stone sleep, ~ he thought. 

"Alright" he agreed, reluctantly. In truth, he didn't even know why she was out here with him, on patrol; in the first place, as he knew how much she hated humans. Although her temper had quietened down a lot since he first met her, humans were not her most favourable species. 

Demona smiled. Yes, she did hate humans with all her soul, but what with their child close to hatching, she knew that changes had to be made. She knew that her beloved mate would want to teach him or her about the values of honour and a Gargoyle's nature to protect. She had long since given up on both of those things, but now she wanted to reclaim them. She didn't want her child growing up with a dishonourable monster for a mother. So she had decided to come out with him on patrol and help him to protect the species that had given her so much pain and misery over the centuries. 

~ How ironic ~ she thought ~ that I, Demona, once called the scourge of humanity would become their protector once more! ~

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud scream that came beneath them. Her mate instantly dived to where the scream had erupted from and sought to help whomever it was that was in need of help.

Demona followed and soon they came down upon an alley where an old peasant man that the humans of today referred to as a _homeless guy_, was being harassed by two younger men, one with a gun and the other with a long and wicked looking knife. 

Her mate immediately flew into action. He dived at the man with the gun because that was the more dangerous weapon of the two and could easily kill either of them. The poor fool never knew what hit him, as he was standing up one second and then a huge, golden-red blur came down, crushing the life out of him and knocking him out senseless. 

His companion watched, shocked, as his friend was tackled and more than easily disabled. He only stood there for about a few seconds, watching, before he turned and ran for his life, only to come face to face with a pair of crimson red eyes that snarled at him. 

"Going somewhere human?" 

The man gagged and stuttered as he was lifted off his feet by his throat and thrown into the wall behind him. Demona watched with deep satisfaction, as the pitiful human's body fell to the ground, unconscious. 

"Very good my darling" her mate crooned as he stepped up, off the man that he had so effectively knocked out and tied up with a long iron pipe. He started to walk towards her. 

All of a sudden, there was the sound of a gunshot and her mate stood still with a blank expression on his face. His left paw slowly went up to the back of his head and touched it. When he brought it back down, it had blood all over it. His eyes moved back to Demona one last time and as he gave her one last look that she couldn't quite read; he fell to the ground. 

Demona, who had been in shock, stood there with her mouth gapping. She took a few steps toward the Gargoyle that had given her back her life and made her feel alive again. She kneeled beside him and examined his head. There was a large bullet hole in the back. 

Demona eyes turned to the man, whom they had saved, only to find him standing, with the gun in his hands and a look of smug satisfaction on his face. 

"It finally ends demon," he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a mask with three red scratch marks on it and placed it on his head. 

~ The Hunter, ~ Demona thought, her thoughts fighting through a haze because her mind was still in shock over the death of her mate. She turned her attention back to her beloved and turned him over, only to find the same blank expression that he had worn on his beautifully handsome face before he died. He looked at her with unseeing eyes; his face permanently set into the same expression that he wore before death, the expression of death. The shock finally passed and Demona let loose a hideously fearsome screech into the air that even had the hunter quivering in his boots. 

The Hunter never had time to even lift up his gun as the demon came charging at him, her eyes set aflame like the devils and threw herself at him. She dug her talons into his neck and held them there as he gagged and struggled to breath, before she quickly lowered her head, bit into his filthy human flesh and ripped out his throat. The present hunter gave one last whimper and his body convulsed one final time before it stopped and came to a rest and his eyes took on the same blank look as her late lover did. 

But Demona wasn't finished yet! After dealing with the elder man, who had taken her love from her, she immediately sprang up from the hunter's corpse and tackled the other man that her mate had subdued. Her talons slashed his face, as they had done centuries ago to the first hunter and continued to do so to the rest of his body. She listened to his cries of pain and his pleas of mercy as she ravaged his body, reducing it to nothing more than a meaningless pile of torn flesh and nothing else. 

Never once, not even for one second, did she ever stop! 

After the second hunter was taken care of, Demona jumped up and turned to face the third hunter that she had subdued, only to find him gone. 

Demona let loose another cry of rage and picked up the corpses of her victims and tore them into further pieces thus painting the walls of the alley with their blood. Her rage, finding no end, continued to ravage the alley, picking up every piece of item that she could find, tearing it to shreds and throwing it all over the place. In the end, there was nothing left in the alley that she could destroy except the body of her beloved and no amount of rage could ever bring her to ravage that! 

With nothing left to ravage and no enemies to fight. Demona had nothing to do, but to take the body of her beloved back to their home. Correction… _her_ home, as she was all alone once more, thanks to the humans! Her eyes began to see red again as she cursed the humans for everything that they had taken from her, again and again. 

She picked up her mate's body, slowly scaled the wall up to the top and took off. 

Had she looked behind her, she would have seen one of the alley walls open up to reveal the third hunter that she thought had escaped. He stepped out of his hiding place and starred at the remains of his family, all torn and shredded beyond recognition. He turned his head and watched the form of the demon disappear from sight and screamed a bloody oath, one that had been sworn many times before him, by many of his ancestors over the centuries. 

"**NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES DEMON! I WILL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU IN THE SAME WAY THAT YOU KILLED MY FATHER AND BROTHER! SHOULD I FAIL TO FIND YOU THEN MY SON WILL CARRY ON THE HUNT AND HIS SON AFTER HIM! THERE WILL BE NO REST FOR US UNTIL THE LAST GARGOYLE DIES!!!**" 

With that, Charles Canmore the first turned and ran out of the alley before anyone saw him. He had to get back home to Scotland, to his wife and son, Charles Canmore the second, who were back there waiting for him. 

****

04.06.1938; 23:51; Demona's mansion

She carried her beloved mate's body back to the mansion and built a fire upon the roof where she burned his body and scattered his ashes with the wind. Except for one small handful of ashes that she placed within a small bag and hung around her neck so that he would always be close to her, even in death. She didn't cry, she was sick and tired of crying. She should have realised that humans, in one way or another, would ruin every chance she got for happiness. 

In a motionless and almost zombie-like state, she walked through the doors to her home and sat down in the living room. It was strange being alone again after spending over a decade of being with her new mate. She sat there for God knows how long? She just sat there, starring at the wall with nothing to do, but think of what she had lost. The humans would all pay for what they had done to her, no doubt about that. All she had to do was wait and if it's one thing that an immortal has plenty of, is time! 

All of a sudden she heard a cracking sound. Her instincts immediately came online and her senses began listening for anything that sounded like prey. The cracking sound continued to sound through the living room and soon, she followed it back to its source. 

It was her egg! 

"Oh my," was all Demona said as she lowered herself to the floor and watched as her child, slowly, made its way into the world. After much wobbling, the egg finally came to a stop and a tiny azure fist punched through the shell, followed by a crop of white blonde hair, a head, a neck, a chest with two wings, a tail and two talon feet. 

The hatchling, as it made its way into the world, started to wail and cry. It sounded like it had a good pair of lungs. 

Demona put her arms around it and gently lifted the newborn Gargoyle up to her. The baby gazed up at her and Demona found herself looking straight into her daughter's eyes. Eyes that she had loved more than anything and would continue to do so for all time to come. 

She hugged the precious little body that held the spirits of herself and that of her fallen mate and gazed into her daughter's eyes… her mate's eyes! Eyes that shone as blue as the sky in paintings that she had seen, set during the day and sparkled as if they were filled with stars. Eyes that had brought her joy, happiness and had given her life. 

"So what will I call you little one?" She asked it, not expecting an answer "how about Hope? No, sounds too corny. Glory? No, wait!" Looking into her daughter's eyes that had once been her mates, she suddenly though of the perfect name for her little bundle of joy. ~My love always referred to me as his darling~ she thought and proudly looked down on her offspring. 

"From this day onward. You shall be known as… Darlene! My darling Darlene!" 

Although she had sworn never to cry again, she could not stop letting loose a few tears for this happy occasion. 

Tonight she had lost a mate, but had gained a daughter. 

****

23.12.1948; 01:26; Demona's mansion,

"Okay Darlene, now hold the sword in front of you, like this." 

Darlene held the large sword in front of her face and mimicked her mother's movements. She aimed it at her mother and waited for the attack. 

Demona suddenly came forward with her sword and tried to bring it down on her daughter's face. Darlene managed to effectively block it and took a swing at her mother's own face, but Demona grabbed her sword, flung it away from her and then pointed her own sword at Darlene's throat. 

"Good defence! But you have to be quicker and smarter than that my daughter. Otherwise the next time when you fight, your opponent won't let you get up and walk away." 

Demona tossed her sword to the side and helped her child up. Darlene giggled as she reached under her arms to pull her up, tickling her slightly. 

Demona smiled at her daughter's laugh. "Hmmm… maybe I shouldn't be so quick to end the fight?" 

Demona then began to mercilessly tickle her child on the belly. 

Darlene squealed with laughter and tried to wriggle away from her mother. "No mommy, no!" 

Demona finally stopped what was probably the worst torture to a little kid and hugged her most beloved treasure in the world. 

"Mommy?" 

"Mmmm?" 

"I have something for you" Darlene detached herself from Demona's arms and ran out of the room for a minute or two. When she came back, she was carrying a small painting. 

"What's this?" Demona asked as Darlene handed her the picture. 

"It's a picture of you that I painted! Don't you think that it looks like you?" 

Demona eyed the picture closely. In all honesty, the picture looked more like a strange tree than it did of her, but she didn't say so. "It's very good sweetheart!" 

Darlene smiled and hugged her mother "I love you mommy!" 

Demona sniffed back a tear and held her daughter close "I love you too sweetheart! Forever and ever!" 

****

30.04.1968; 01:26; Demona's mansion,

"**DARLENEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!**" Demona's thunderous voice came screeching out her study, searching for her young offspring. 

Darlene slowly walked out of her personal room that her mother had given her to play in, when she was young and walked to her mother's study. 

Darlene had inherited her mother; Demona's azure colouring even though it was a tad bit lighter than hers was. She also had her mother's delicately framed face and her father's eyes wings and white blonde hair. By the age of twenty (ten in Gargoyle years) she was quite the little beauty. Demona had often thought that she had given birth to an angel, every time that she looked at her daughter. She really was the prettiest little gem and Demona swore to herself that she would die a million deaths, before she would ever left some back stabbing human get close to her. 

Unfortunately, no one's perfect because as pretty as Darlene was, she was also trouble with a capital T. 

Darlene walked to her mother's study and knocked on the door. 

"Enter!" Demona spoke, her voice with a sharp edge to it. 

Darlene took a deep breath and entered her mother's home away from home. 

The place was in shambles! Books had been overturned, there was a large burnt hole in the wall and one of Demona's urn jars had been broken. Demona was not happy! 

"Would you mind **EXPLAINING THIS?!**" Demona yelled, pointing at the destruction that had once been her workroom. 

Darlene cringed, "I was… practising." 

"**PRACTISING?**" 

Darlene took a step back. She knew what a frightful temper that her mother had and didn't want to be at the receiving end if it. "I was… practising my magic. I tried to summon a water spirit with one of your urn jars, but something went wrong. Instead of summoning a water spirit, I conjured up a fire spirit. It went mad and blasted a hole through the wall and… I managed to get rid of it by breaking the urn jar!"

Darlene lowered her head in shame, "I'm sorry." 

Demona blinked a couple of times and looked back at the war zone that had once been her workroom. "You… summoned an elemental spirit?" 

Darlene nodded. 

Demona had to put on her best poker face, as the humans called it, because summoning an elemental spirit was an extremely hard spell. One that even she had not quite mastered at first and Darlene had been able to summon one on her very first try. True, she had summoned the wrong one, but for her very first go, it was exceedingly impressive. She was not, however, going to let her daughter know that! 

"You shouldn't have tried casting a spell without my supervision. You could have been hurt or worse. Not to mention what you've done to my workroom. Just be grateful that it didn't spread around the rest of the house." 

Darlene sniffed and nodded. Demona felt a wave of pity for her, but decided to remain firm. If she allowed Darlene to get away with this incident then what was stopping her from trying it again? 

"Go to your room and stay there for the rest of the night." 

"Ohhh, but mom…!" 

"No buts! Now… GO!" 

Darlene rushed away from her mother before she started shouting again and raced to her room. Demona had to keep herself from laughing. By the way that her child looked at her when she was angry, you would think that she was going to eat her. 

Demona sniggered, but soon stopped when she took another look at the mess that she was going to have to clean up and went back to cleaning up the room.

Darlene raced to her room, but slowed down once she was inside. She went to the window with the little light that her mother had put on, which gave her favourite flower, a pink rose, life. Since she and her mother could only come out at night, she could never see flowers bloom in the daytime. So her mother had told her about photosynthesis where the plant feeds off the solar rays from the sun and gave her the lamp, which provided her favourite flower with all the energy it needed. 

She fondled the petals and sighed at the pretty flower's soft touch. It always used to calm her down and pink Roses were her favourite, of all time, flowers! 

Her mother had a violent temper! She knew that, but she also knew that her mother loved her. Darlene loved her too and couldn't imagine life without her. 

She just wished that she wouldn't let her anger take over her all the time. When she was good, she was wonderful, but when she was bad… she was terrifying! 

Darlene shuddered and fondled the rose petals some more. 

****

23.12.1997; 15:11; A warehouse owned by Nightstone Unlimited, somewhere outside of New York,

Demona smiled when she remembered this time, it had been one of the happiest times in her life and during the following ten years Darlene had matured into one of the greatest of all beauties that had ever walked upon the earth. Her body had grown from the innocent angel like child to a full buxom warrior.

She had been as tall as Demona and had her figure, together with her azure colouring that became equal in shade to her own. Her hair had grown all the way down her back. It had shone brighter than the sun and was so soft that it was like touching water. Her eyes had been just her father's, sky blue that sparkled as though they had stars inside them and had looked like they could see right into your soul. 

She had been...

Demona growled, as much as she was able to do this in her human form. 

The humans had taken her daughter like her mate. 

Darlene had started to fly around the city a lot for some months, not that Demona blamed her for this. There was not much that a young gargoyle could do in this city back then, but she blamed herself for not having insisted on her that she stayed home that night or at least that she would come home on before sunrise... but she didn't.

Darlene had decided to rest in an old abandoned warehouse that night, but the humans had pulled down the building just at midday that day and so killed her daughter.

Demona felt the old pain taking over her heart when she remembered the nights she had spent in the ruins of the building, searching for remains of her daughter and screaming her name. After this, she had felt how a part of her soul became dead, crushed to dust by the humans who had done it again...

Like after her father, like after Wyvern, Moray, like so many times before....

Demona grinned viciously. 

She would betray the timeline once again. She would rescue her daughter from the so called fate and reclaim this part of her soul from death.

Demona leaned against the nearest wall, calling in her minds the memories of her daughter and her beloved mate.

Oh how she wished to do the same with her mate... but this was impossible. For once, they had spent the day in tender embrace so that she couldn't exchange him by her illusion spell and then they had even so spent the whole night together until his death. 

This time she knew death had won, nothing she could do was enough to change that....

~ Well ~ Demona thought, ~ I could... ~

She shivered in the depth of her bones when she thought of this possibility and in the breath of a second, she was tensed...

~ No ~ 

Memories flooded through her mind, memories of the warnings of those who had taught her this, the risk was too large, much too large.

But she could bring her daughter back and even more, with the more clans around she could finally give her daughter the family she deserved... after she had regulated some things.

Demona took the Phoenix Gate from her belt and spoke the spell. 

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia." 

****

02.05.1978; 21:02; Demona's mansion,

"Mother?"

Demona looked up from her desk and smiled at the one light of her life as she came into her study. "What is it daughter?" 

"I have to go out again."

Demona's face immediately fell as Darlene asked her permission, once more, to venture out into the night. "I see." Demona raised herself from her chair and stood to carefully look at her offspring. She had noticed Darlene's strange behaviour over the past few months, but didn't want to pry. She had thought that her daughter would tell her in her own time, but so far… she hadn't.

"I maybe out late this night? There's a lot of things that I want to see in the city tonight." Darlene spoke with barely noticeable excitement, something that didn't escape her mother's attention. 

"Darlene? Are you all right?" 

"Yes, I'm fine. I just want to get out and do some gliding tonight. That's all!" 

"Again?" Demona asked with a raised eye ridge. 

"What? I haven't been gliding in ages!" 

Demona couldn't argue with that, but she still found it disconcerting, the way that her daughter just seemed to brush her off like that. But Darlene had never done anything bad and she always told the truth. Plus, she had been studying really hard at her magic lessons lately, so she deserved a little break.

"Very well," she moodily agreed. 

"Thanks mom," Darlene spoke with very little enthusiasm, but gave her mother one small smile, a hug and a kiss. She held onto her for a long moment and whispered "I love you." 

Demona felt very confused, but happily accepted the show of love and affection from her beloved child and answered, "I love you too." 

Darlene gave her mother a long look "if I'm not back then I'll be spending the day on that old abandoned warehouse a few blocks from here. You know the one that I'm talking about?" 

"Yes I remember, but try and be back before sunrise! I don't like you spending the days out in the open with no protection." 

"I'll be fine mother," Darlene said while giving her mother one final look before turning away and running out the balcony door. 

Demona watched her daughter's rapidly fading form as she soared across the night sky and disappeared from sight. Part of her wanted to soar after her daughter and make her tell her what was going on? But she knew her daughter would never tell her if she went after her that way. 

Demona sighed and went back to her study. Without her daughter to talk to, her nights were very long and dull. It was like before she had met her father, back when she had been all alone with no one to talk to. She shuddered as she remembered those awful days and prayed that they would never come back! 

****

02.05.1978; 21:23; A building in front of Demona's mansion:

Demona frowned while looking on her daughter gliding nearer and hid herself in the shadows. She hadn't expected that her daughter had come to this building, indeed she hadn't expected to make this trip to this night after all, but it proved to be necessary when she didn't find her daughter at the building she had claimed to be resting on during the day, even when she had searched from the cellar to the roof. 

Finally, she concluded that her daughter hadn't rested there this night out of any miraculous reason Demona did not know. Maybe a human or even a Hunter had caught her unprepared and had killed her, on every case Demona had to catch her before that and bring her with herself in the future, so the time stream would stay unharmed since on every case Darlene wouldn't return home this time.

Demona hid in the shadow when Darlene landed, ready to come out and surprise her daughter, when she noticed that she was weeping.

~ By the dragon what? ~ Demona asked herself, confused of the meaning of this and stayed hidden. Even when she wanted to ease her daughter's pain, she had to know what she had been... _was_ up to this night.

After a minute, her daughter leaped up into the night, gliding fast to an unknown goal and Demona followed her, hiding in the shadows of the buildings. 

~ Where is she going? ~ Demona asked herself constantly, but somehow she knew it would be the same place Darlene had gone to in the last months while she was out.

Finally, to her greatest shock, she saw Darlene landing on a balcony of an apartment.

~ What is she doing there? ~ Demona cursed angrily, ~ I told her again and again not to go near the humans! ~

A human came out of the door and Demona's muscles tensed, ready to leap out of the shadows on this man to kill him and to rescue her daughter. But then, most to her surprise, the man asked how it was going and to Demona's complete shock, Darlene rushed toward to the human and threw herself into his shoulder, sobbing in it.

Demona looked stunned on this scene, asking herself what was happening. She looked on the human, he was about six feet tall and well built, with rich brown hair, sun tanned skin, round brown eyes like berries and high cheekbones and sensed him for any signs of magic, through which he could have bewitched her daughter, but there was nothing and then this embrace, it seemed nearly... 

~ No ~ Demona thought ~ she can't have feelings for a human. ~

"I'm ready to do the spell," Darlene said after stopping to cry and her human friend nodded. 

~ What spell? ~ Demona asked herself silently and crept out of the shadows upon seeing how her daughter enter the apartment.

Demona glided to the building and climbed to a window and spied inside it.

~ What spell? ~ she asked herself again.

Demona saw how her daughter began to draw a large circle, with a star in it, on the floor. She also drew some more complex diagrams into the circle. When she was done, she threw some herbs into the circle and chanted some words in Latin that Demona understood all too well. 

~ No, daughter you can't ~ Demona thought, pleaded. 

She tried to move, tried to break through the window and stop her daughter from doing this, but the shock was too large and she could just look at how her daughter walked into the circle, threw another handful of dust around herself and spoke a single more Latin word. 

"MUTARE!"

No sooner had her daughter said that word, she doubled over in pain and roared to the heavens in a pain that Demona knew all too well. The human ran over to her to help, but was stopped by an invisible field of some sort. Demona watched, helplessly, as her daughter writhed on the ground, tossing and turning in unimaginable pain. Then, as she watched more closely, she saw her tail and wings shrink back into her body and her skin fade from the brilliant azure colouring that she loved into a pale golden pink hue. More changes continued to occur until finally she stopped screaming and Demona saw the human stepping into the circle and running over to her daughter.

But indeed her daughter was no more, instead there stood a human female, beautiful maybe, but just a human female.

"Darlene?" the human asked her daughter who was staring at her weak human fingers.

"It... it worked?" the human female asked.

"Apparently so," the human responded. 

"It's… different to what I thought it would be." Darlene said, unknowing that her mother listened every word.

The human gave Darlene a sympathetic smile, which made Demona snarl unconsciously. 

"Missing your old form already?" 

"Yeah, I guess. I suppose I never really thought about it until now, that… this is it! I'm human, now and forever. I'll never be able to soar across the skies again or roar to the heavens every time when I awake." She looked ready to cry and the human instantly put his arm around her, which nearly led Demona to vomit. 

"It's not too late is it? You can still undo the spell?" The human asked her daughter, much to Demona's wonder and just for a second, she had hope that her daughter would become sensible 

But Darlene instantly shook her head furiously. 

"No! Mother will find us and I dread to think what she'll do to you?! I would rather sacrifice my life as a gargoyle then risk loosing you!" 

The human gave her a gentle smile and kissed her. 

This was too much for Demona, like dead she climbed on the roof of the building, not feeling anything but emptiness.

  
On the roof she starred down on the streets, without really noticing anything until her daughter and her.... human lover left the building. 

Demona's claws tightened on the roof, crumbling stone and a deep growl emitted her throat when she saw Darlene and the human she was with now, entering a car and driving away, surely out of the town, maybe even out of the continent... it didn't matter for Demona.

She grabbed the Phoenix Gate so hard that it nearly broke and spoke the spell hoping that the Gate would bring her anywhere where she hadn't to bear this pain.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia."

****

31.12.1997; 23:57; A warehouse owned by Nightstone Unlimited, somewhere outside of New York,

The Gate set Demona free and she fell on her knees, looking blankly ahead.

~ She has betrayed me... ~

She felt like her heart had crumbled slowly in her breast when she thought of her daughter changing into a human.

~ She left me for a human... ~

Demona saw before her inner eye, Darlene entering the cab and a tear ran down her cheek. 

The pain grew until she couldn't bear it any longer and screamed.

The scream of her tortured soul shattered the windows of the fabric hall and carried far through the streets of New York. But luckily the sound of the rockets exploding to greet the New Year overwrote the echoes of her scream.

Demona hung her head and did not notice the tears, which were dripping on the floor. Finally, she looked up to the last statue standing in the hall, but without destiny now, since the gargoyle whom she should have duplicated never had never come even near death.

Demona looked up to the statue of her daughter that she had produced after modeling her daughter the night before her disappearance. The statue seemed to mock her now with the eyes of her daughter, with her whole pose and Demona growled on it, her eyes blazing red. 

She saw the fire-axe hanging behind the security glass and grabbed it, not even feeling the pain when her claws shattered the glass and got terrible wounds, then she stood before the statue of her daughter.

__

*"I love you mommy!"*

Demona hesitated for just the touch of a second, before letting the axe fall down on the statues' face.

*Crack* 

The statues' head shattered. 

*Crack* 

The statues' upper body crumbled.

*Crack*

The statue crumbled even more...

After uncounted minutes, Demona breathed heavily and looked down on the rubble, which was just barely recognizable as the remains of a statue. Then she looked on the stumble, which had been her axe and dropped it.

It was over.

Demona turned around and spoke the spell and while leaving this place for the last time, she even so left the hope behind.

****

02.05.1978; 23:47; JFK-Airport New York:

Darlene went through the gates of the airport, astonished by what she saw. She had never been in such a large building, had never seen so many humans around her who didn't run away from her.

~ Why should they? ~ She corrected herself; ~ I'm one of them. ~

Again, she looked down on her five human fingers to reassure that this was real. And it was real, real like the clothing she felt on her body, much more clothing than she had ever worn, but now necessary to protect her more fragile body and her soft skin. 

She looked up to Paul beside her and hugged him deeply. He was worth this, she knew this with everything she was and when he hugged her back she knew it even more.

Paul looked into his love's sparkling blue eyes. 

"Come, the plane will leave soon." 

Darlene nodded and followed Paul to the departure lounge and sat down beside him, but somehow she had a strange feeling as if someone was following her. She looked around the way her mother had taught her and scanned the hall for unusual sights, but just noticed an older man in long coat, reading the newspaper. By doing so she noticed that her senses were weaker than in her human body, but she ignored it when she didn't see any reasons for being careful.

  
"Darlene, what is it?" Paul asked, worried. 

Darlene looked to him and shrugged her shoulders.

"I've just an odd feeling," she replied.

"Like being human for the first night?" he joked. 

Despite the situation, Darlene had to smile. 

"I suppose so."

"You will see that this has some advantages." he explained. "You will see the sun... Hey, we can even get a tan on the shore. And you will see flowers, believe me that."

Darlene softly touched her love's face.

"Most of all, I'll be with you." she explained. "You are all I need."

**__**

"All Passengers of the flight New York to Los Angeles please take your seats, I repeat...."

"Come, we have to go." Paul explained and led her to the desk of the airline agency where they had to check in.

When they stood in the queue for the desk, Darlene looked behind her back. 

There stood a woman, about forty maybe, with long black hair, sunglasses and a leather vest who reminded Darlene slightly of her mother.

Darlene shook her head and turned around. She didn't feel any magic coming from her, so it was no illusion and therefore not her mother.

"What are your names?" the employee asked politely. 

"Paul Anderson," Paul replied.

"And you Miss?" 

"Darlene..." Darlene stopped, as she had no family name. Indeed, she had even no family anymore. Then she looked into her love's eyes and made her decision. "…Anderson." 

"Darlene Anderson, here are your tickets." the employee explained and handed her them "Good flight."

Darlene nodded and arm in arm she went with Paul out to the gateway, which led to the plain and her new life.

The man with the newspaper looked after them and saw them entering the plane, not noticing that he was in the line.

"Sir," the employee demanded and finally the man got his attention to her. 

"You have to hurry. Your plane is starting to leave."

"I have a faster plane." the man replied and turned around, leaving the surprised employee behind. 

The man went to the men toilets and entered them. They were empty...

~ Good ~

Demona opened her wings to full length and allowed them to destroy her illusion. It was a weak illusion spell indeed, one touch of a person could destroy it, but it was the only one Demona could speak without a medium.

Maybe it was a risk for the time stream that she had followed her daughter on this way, on the other hand… wouldn't the time stream have imploded already if it couldn't compensate such? And it was worth the price, since she knew now where her daughter was going and what her human lover's name was.

Demona grinned evilly, she would find out where her daughter lived and show her what pain was, the same sort of pain she had given her.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia."

The immortal vanished with an oath of vengeance. 

****

14.10.1980; 12:32; road before a house in Los Angeles:

A woman in a black leather jacket, dark sunglasses and long red hair bounded in a mop, studied the house in front of her. It was a normal house with normal white facade, flowers of the sort that Darlene had always liked, the woman noticed.

Demona looked around. It was a quaint normal looking house, for a human, with a pleasant garden and a blue Volkswagen car in front of it, fitting for the human couple who lived there, one of them that had once been her daughter. 

It hadn't been difficult to find this Paul Anderson amongst the humans in L.A., but she had started it some years later to make sure that they didn't change their home shortly after and she lost them again.

Demona had checked Paul Anderson out, he was a construction worker with no high income and after looking at his school records Demona doubted that he would ever become a high ranked worker with enough money to give her daughter just a bit of the standard life she would have been able to give her.

Suddenly the door sprang open and a woman, Darlene, came out followed by her husband. She didn't look well at all, as she was sweating and giving out short screams of pain. 

~ He has hurt her, ~ was Demona's first thought, but looking on her swollen body Demona realized what was happening.

"Ohhhh," Darlene screamed when new pains raced through her body.

"Just breathe," Paul tried to help her while he opened the door to the car, "just like we practiced." 

"I didn't have this pain when we were practicing it!" Darlene snapped at him while she entered the car and a new pain came. "Ohhh," she screamed. "Mother never told me that delivering an egg was so painful."

Her husband smiled at her. 

"You're holding yourself wonderfully," he told her and held her hand while he sat down on the driver's seat. 

Darlene looked into his brown eyes, squeezing his hand and kissed him.

"Come, you've got to hurry. Your daughter wants out... daddy," Darlene explained to him. 

Paul's smile increased and he started the car, driving it to the hospital, never releasing his wife's hand from his own.

In the shadows of a tree, Demona watched after the car with red shining eyes. 

So her daughter had been with egg... had become pregnant and surely would soon deliver a human baby. A part of Demona's heart wished that her daughter's brat would die in the maternity ward and her daughter lived so that she could feel the pain, whereas another part of her was simply equal, wishing that she lived or died. 

Demona looked down on her talisman.

Why had the Phoenix Gate led her here, to this time and place? She hadn't really formulated in her mind when and where she wanted to go, just to the future of her daughter and the Gate had sent her to this... surely for her daughter's important incident. 

~ It doesn't matter ~ Demona growled to herself and spoke the spell.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia."

****

14.06.1997; 20:14; House of the Anderson family, Los Angeles:

Jarred, 8 years old, slowly entered the room and looked around.

~ Where is it? ~ 

He ran his right hand through his thick brown hair while his brown colored eyes searched through the room.

"Hey! Outta here short stuff!" Lana, 16 but nearly 17 as she forever pronounced, shouted angrily at Jarred who had sneaked into her room.

She had fair hair like her mother and looked mostly like a younger version of her, just that her eyes were brown like her fathers. 

"I just need your Michael Jackson CD," Jarred complained while his older sister pushed him out of her room.

"NO WAY!" Lana told him by the door, crossing her arms. "You broke the last one I lent you!" 

"That was last month," Jarred defended himself. 

"Buy it yourself," Lana demanded.

"MOOOM," Jarred screamed and some seconds later, Darlene appeared with three month old Gem, her youngest child with her fair blond hair and her blue sparkling eyes, in her arms. Seemingly she had just bathed the baby, since her hair was still a bit damp.

"What is it?" Darlene asked with a light frown on her face while the baby in her arms cooed and tried with her little arms to reach her siblings. 

~ Why can't they go one day without fighting each other? ~ 

"Lana refuses to lend me her Michael Jackson CD," Jarred complained.

"They are my CD's and he always breaks them," Lana defended herself.

"It was just one time," Jarred tried.

"One time too much," Lana replied.

Darlene groaned under her breath, she could just hope that Gem wouldn't turn out like her older siblings.

"Lana, please lend him the CD," she pleaded, "and Jarred, be careful with it."

"But Mom..." came the unhappy reply from Lana

"No buts Lana," and when Darlene saw her son grinning, she added. "And as for you Jarred, I think it is time for a bath." 

"Ähhh mom, I just had a bath last week," he replied, but the look that his mother gave him caused him to grin sheepishly. 

"Okay, I'm filling it," he explained and went off in the direction of the bathroom.

Darlene sighed and went down to the drawing room where Paul sat about with some construction plans and a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Just the common trouble," Darlene explained and sat down beside her husband.

Paul smiled and gently took the baby out of his wife's arm and embraced it softly, what Gem enjoyed very much and showed this by gurgling happily.

"Who's my little Gem?" Paul asked his youngest daughter and tickled Gem's belly, on which the baby laughed even more.

Darlene looked on her love and her daughter and smiled. She was happier than she could describe, yet.... 

No! There was no yet, the yet came from another life, a life she had left behind.

"Darlene, what is it?" Paul asked since he had noticed his wife's slightly pained expression.

Darlene shook her head. "Nothing," she lied. "It is just, I'm so happy now..." 

Paul nodded, he knew she lied and he knew what troubled her, but he wouldn't talk about it. In truth, they hadn't talked about the past since years... since Jarred's birth maybe.

Gem indeed sensed the trouble and started to wail.

"Ohh come here my little one," Darlene said and took Gem out of Paul's arms. "What is it?" 

Softly, she rocked back and forth to calm her daughter and sung an old rookery song that her mother... that she had heard once.

Gem already lay drowsy in Darlene's arms, when Paul's cell-phone began to ring. 

"Yes..." he started, "What, now... Okay I'm coming." 

Paul sighed and tucked the cell-phone back in his pocket.

"Troubles at the building site?" his wife asked silently, trying not to wake up the daughter in her arms.

Paul nodded. "They haven't advanced as fast as they promised," he explained. "I have to go and see what to do or we might risk loosing the order."

"How long will you need?" Darlene asked

"Maybe 4 hours, or maybe just 1… or maybe even more," Paul admitted. "I have no idea."

"Then go," Darlene replied. "I'll wait." 

"I love you," Paul explained and smirked.

"I love you, too," Darlene answered and gave him a kiss.

With this, Paul vanished and left Darlene alone with Gem who seemed very vivid again and studied her mother with her shining blue eyes.

"Seemingly you're a little night owl," Darlene noticed, smiling on her daughter and stroking the few blonde hairs on her head.

~ Where is this from? ~ Darlene asked herself, even when she knew the answer. All her children, she included, were more night active than regular... other humans. ~ Seemingly the spell wasn't completely successful after all... ~

Darlene smiled on Gem, trying to forget, and hummed her daughter once again a song to calm her down. 

****

14.06.1997; 20:41; the neighbor's house:

On the roof of the neighbor of the family Anderson's house, Demona looked on the scene with an unreadable expression. She had seen the typical daily and nightly routine of Darlene's family. She had seen them laughing and playing and now she saw Paul driving away.

Demona clenched her claws into fists until she noticed the blood running down her claw. She had made her decision.

"Deflegrate muri tempi et intervallia."

With this the time-traveler vanished, unknowing of the two eyes that studied her from a hiding place, until the end.

****

03.01.98; 02:56; Destine Mansion:

Demona stood over a package and placed her most important magical artifacts in it. She had just 4 hours before entered her mansion, after a time which maybe was chronically nothing, but for her it seemed like months... years.

It was over. 

She had ordered a special firm to deliver two letters to Xanatos, which would reach him exactly at 19:00 this day. The first letter was addressed to Goliath containing the explanation, the Phoenix Gate and the coordinates of the other clans. The other letter was addressed to Xanatos containing a warning of not to open Goliath's letter since she cared that just Goliath would open it and survive the spell she had placed on it, giving him the instruction to lead Hudson to the room containing his mate.

Demona showed something that someone could almost describe as a smile, even if it was just for the touch of a second. She could imagine Hudson's unbelieving face and then his happiness... she had never hated him, even though he had followed Goliath, and felt a long forgotten warm emotion in her breast when she thought of his joy over having back his mate.

She shook her head, as there was no room for such weak emotions, she wouldn't allow them herself, especially since she knew what had to come....

Demona concentrated on the package again. She took a sticky-tape and secured the package. Early in the morning, her plane to Berlin would start and some hours later the movers would come to empty the house of all the furniture and bring them to Berlin.

Berlin... of all places in the world, or just in Europe, she had chosen this place because she was almost sure, through the destruction of this city during the second World War, that there lived no gargoyles and what she didn't want to have were other gargoyles around her now.

~ Ironic ~ she thought while she cut the sticky-tape with her sharp claw and placed it on the package, ~ I spent years trying to find the last of my kind and now that I know where they are, I choose to be alone. ~

But it was necessary, it was better this way because....

"Mother." a soft voice at her back called her.

Demona stiffened, as she knew this voice as if it had been only yesterday when she had last heard it.

"What do you want here?" she asked her daughter, snarling dangerously, while her eyes became blazing red.

The beautiful, fair haired gargoyle looked perplexed at her mother, who stayed standing with her back to her. She had prepared for many reactions of her mother, from total surprise to sudden screaming, but this...

"Mother, I'm... Darlene," she tried again as maybe her mother had mistaken her for someone else. "I'm alive, I...."

Demona snarled loudly, again without turning around and suddenly Darlene had the feeling of being in the wrong scene. 

"I know you spent the last twenty years living with that human... your husband in Los Angeles." Now Demona turned around, looking her daughter directly in her eyes. "You changed into a human for him."

Darlene had to work hard not to waver. Her eyes were full of hate, not fury but true hate and the way she spoke... her voice was sharp as a knife cutting into her soul.

"You knew?" Darlene asked unbelieving, not knowing what else to say. 

"Naturally I knew," Demona lied and turned back to the package. "Did you think I did not notice your behavior the month before? I smelt it."

Darlene could just stare at her mother's back.

"Mother, I can't believe that you... "Darlene swallowed."I thought you would have killed him." 

Demona snorted.

"I would have if you had dared to introduce him to me," she explained, glancing back at her, "and I would have if I had known the weeks before how far you..." 

Demona's eyes glowed red again and the way her mother studied her made Darlene think of the fastest escape route. 

"I saw you change into human for him, by the magic that **I** taught you," Demona growled. "You made your decision for him and against me, there was nothing I could have done." 

Darlene stared at her mother completely speechless, she had guessed that her mother would have raced after her if she would have had just the suspicion of what had truly happened, but this... 

A part of her froze when she realized that she had seemingly not mattered, for her mother, enough to go after her when she had gone. This hurt her more than she could say, even when it would have meant that her mother would have killed Paul.

"But apparently you are in your true form again, so what happened?" Demona asked and in Darlene grew a glimmer of hope that she wasn't the same for her mother after all.

"The spell wore off," Darlene explained. "I changed back and my children, your grandchildren, have changed into gargoyles too. After I changed, I had to tell them the truth and now I can't reverse it."

"And no doubt your _husband_," she laid in this word all the contempt she could show without turning around, "left you now that you're a gargoyle again."

Darlene snarled with red blazing eyes on her mother and had to control herself not to leap on her, but she knew all too well that Demona would never turn her back to someone she thought to be dangerous without being prepared to defend herself.

"**HE IS DEAD!**" Darlene screamed on her mother, hoping that she would at least turn around, but she didn't. "He died 6 months ago in a car accident."

"Pity," Demona replied icily and if Darlene would have seen how her mother smiled, sneering, then she would have attacked, but she didn't and Demona's face became even, nearly at once, "And now you come crawling back to me to ask for help."

Darlene swallowed, as this was pretty well what she was doing, but she didn't know what else to do.

"Maybe I have no right to do so," Darlene admitted, "but please mother, if there is any love for me left in you to forgive me..."

"**FORGIVE YOU?!**" Demona screamed, turning her face around to her daughter, her eyes shining red. "You left me for a human despite all that their race had done to us, despite the fact that they had killed your father. You wanted me to believe you were dead. Have you any idea how... " ~…Many hours I spent in the ruins of that building searching for you, screaming your name.... ~, but she couldn't say so without revealing her lie, so instead she turned around and continued much softer than she wanted to. "…much pain you caused me? Did you know how alone I was?"

Demona propped her claws on the package, trying to recover her strength and felt, much to her embarrassment, the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. She heard her daughter coming nearer. 

"If you dare touch me with your claw, I'll break it." Demona warned and her daughter drew her claw back instantly, sensing that this wasn't a hollow threat, as her mother never made hollow threats.

For a moment, Darlene studied her mother's back and thought on any way to reach the heart she knew her mother had.

"Mother, I was alone too..." Darlene explained. "In the years before Paul, I had no friends, no one else..."

"You had me," Demona replied angrily.

Darlene shook her head. "This wasn't enough, can't you understand that? I loved him!" 

"**AND I LOVED YOU!**" Demona screamed on her daughter. "As much as a mother can love her child... I trusted you with all my being and you chose to betray me for a human."

"Mother, I'm sorry for the pain I caused you, but like you said… you would never have accepted Paul." Darlene tried. "You have to see that you don't need to be alone, if you just would have considered befriending some of the humans..."

"**NEVER!!!**" Demona threw her face dangerously close into her daughter's. "After all they did to our race, after all they did to my clans, after all they did... to me, I will never even consider to do so." 

"See mother, see my point." Darlene replied coolly despite her fear. "Your goddamned hate caused you your pain and your loneliness. Let it go, this all happened so long ago... If you let it go then this way you would be free." 

"Never," Demona told her icily. "Not even in another thousand years would I consider doing so."

"What brought you to this?" Darlene asked; looking into her mother's eyes, trying to reach the good heart she knew... she had to have. "What brought you your hate on the humans? You live here alone, without friends or company. Humans can be great friends, I have learned." 

"You lived as a human under them," Demona reminded her, "never will they truly accept gargoyles as equals."

Darlene sighed.

"You never tried it in 1000 years and all that your hate brings you is bitterness," she explained.

"Oh really?" Demona asked mockingly, her eyes shining with evil joy. "Well what do you say on this then? I had a lot of fun!"

With this, she came slightly nearer to her daughter, moving dangerously like a wild cat, while her daughter looked on her in shock.

"Three years ago I changed the humans in this city to stone by night," she explained. "Then I went out and smashed whom I saw... I counted 100." 

Darlene's eyes went large from shock through this unveiling.

"No," she whispered. "This can't... you couldn't."

But a look in the eyes of her mother showed her that she spoke the truth.

Darlene slowly moved backward while her mother neared her like a hungry predator.

"Oh and then, just two years ago, I nearly had success by wiping the human kind from the face of this planet." Demona revealed to her daughter whose back touched the wall now, which was good since else she would have collapsed. 

"It was a deadly virus, which I nearly had been able to set free. In a month, all the humans in the world would have either been dead or dying." She explained. "Unfortunately, a local gargoyle clan prevented me from doing so."

Darlene looked on her mother, totally shocked.

"You would have killed me," she noted, "my husband... my children."

Demona smiled evilly on her daughter, putting a claw on the wall beside her daughter's face.

"I knew you made your choice Darlene," Demona lied. "You had chosen to be human, so why should I have treated you any differently than the rest of them?" 

With this, Demona turned back around to her package. Darlene meanwhile slowly sank down the wall she had leaned on with her back, since her legs were unable to carry her anymore. 

She thought of what her mother had nearly done and tears ran down her face.

~ I don't matter to her anymore ~ Darlene realized and felt her heart crumble. ~ She would have killed me, my children... ~

In her mind, she saw herself with her dead son in her arms, Lana lying beside him already dead too. The little life in her own stomach grown cold and not moving anymore...

Darlene had to control herself from not breaking down completely, but sobbed heavily.

Demona seemingly didn't care, as she was busy making another package, filling it with some needful artifacts. But when, after some minutes, she felt that her daughter was still there, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall, she made her decision.

"Like I told you, there is a gargoyle clan in the city," Demona explained. "They're living in the castle at the top of the Eyrie building to be exact. They will surely take you and your brats in at once so you will have the *friends* you wished for. As for your spell, I can't duplicate it if it has already been spoken once, neither would I want to and I know of no other ways."

Demona waited a second and then added, "Now get out of my house," she ordered, "**GO!**"

It took again some seconds until Darlene finally answered.

"No," she silently whispered.

Demona turned around to her daughter, her eyes blazing red.

"**WHAT?!**"

Darlene responded to her mother's view, without ice or hatred in her face, so that her eyes showed just her soul.

  
Darlene guided her claw through her face to rid it of the tears and slowly stood up. By doing so, she thought of her children and how they had nearly died because she hadn't had the courage to face her mother, which nearly made her cry again, but she stopped the tears from coming.

"I made this mistake once mother," she explained, "Never again." 

When her mother didn't respond, she continued.

"I missed you mother. I tried to forget you but I couldn't, not for one day." Darlene sighed. "I want you in my life, not any other gargoyles. You are my family. I... I love you."

Demona studied her prodigal daughter coldly.

"And I should believe you on this?" Demona asked. "I should just simply take you up again after all the pain you caused me."

Darlene swallowed. 

"Maybe not for me," she started and took three little photos of three children out of her pocket, "but for them."

Demona looked on the photos, but didn't touch them as if they would make her sick.

"Your children?" she asked, even when she knew the answer better than Darlene could suspect.

"Your grandchildren," Darlene explained. 

She pointed on the mischievous looking boy with brown hair and eyes. "This is Jarred," she said and then pointed on the photo of the young girl who looked so much like her except for the brown eyes, "this is Lana." Finally she pointed on the baby, "and this is Gem. They all want to meet you."

Demona looked deep into her daughter's eyes. "Why do I doubt this?" she asked and saw her daughter wincing slightly. 

There was a silence between them and finally Demona turned around back to her package. 

"Take your children and go to the Eyrie building," she explained again. "This advice is all you are getting from me."

Even though her mother didn't see it, Darlene nodded while once again tears were streaming down her face and she felt as if a part of her heart had died.

"I will always love you mother," she explained with a broken voice and went to the door.

Demona's heart shook. She felt as if she were broken in two halves, one half screamed at her to stop her daughter from going out of her life again, whereas the other half told her that it didn't matter. Her heart was still struggling when her mind suddenly thought of something… 

~ What if she doesn't reach the clan alive? ~

"Daughter!" 

Darlene froze and turned around.

~ She called me daughter ~ she noticed, feeling an indescribable feeling of happiness in her heart. 

Darlene looked into her mother's crying eyes and saw pain, loneliness... and love.

Demona slowly approached her daughter and Darlene did the same. When they met in the middle, they embraced each other, crying and stroking each other's hair. Finally, Demona cupped her daughter's face so that she could look her straight into her sparkling blue eyes.

"I won't let you go daughter, not this time," Demona assured her. "But we can't stay here."

"I noticed you were packing," Darlene said. "To be honest, I had not thought that you would still be living here. Why do you go now?"

Demona sighed.

"I have had trouble with the local clan and don't want to have to kill one of them," she lied. "Besides, I think it is time for a change of scenery for me... I have lived here too long."

"Where to?" 

"Berlin," Demona explained.

Darlene looked unbelieving on her mother

"Berlin, the capital of Germany... in Europe?" she asked and Demona nodded. 

There was some silence in the room.

~ Lana certainly won't be jumping for joy ~ she thought and then added out-loud. "I... we will come with you." 

"Then let us go to your children," Demona said. "We can glide from there directly to the airport where my jet waits." 

"Your jet?" Darlene asked her mother, completely surprised.

"Many things have happened during the last few years," Demona admitted. "I will explain them to you on the way. The transport business will care for the package and the rest of the furniture."

Darlene nodded...

~ Berlin??? ~

So mother and daughter went off to the window, gliding ahead to the docks where Darlene's children waited. 

****

03.01.98; 03:41; The Docks:

Darlene and Demona landed on the roof of the old warehouse where Darlene had ordered her children to stay hidden. When Darlene went in, her mother hesitated. 

"Mother?" she asked, fearing that her mother had changed her mind.

Demona shook her head. "I think you should better tell them first who I am and what I did," she suggested. "To let them know and give them time to get used to me."

Darlene nodded and went in through a broken window while Demona turned around to the moon.

~ What am I doing here? ~ Demona asked herself while looking on the moon, one of the rare things, which hadn't changed in all the time of her life. ~ Why am I even doing this? ~

Demona sighed. She was doing it because she feared that her daughter and her grandchildren wouldn't arrive at the Eyrie alive. Then again, on the other hand, there had been the possibility to go with them to assure that they arrived safely. 

~ Which would have led to more questions ~ Demona noted, imagining all too well Angela and Darlene's face if she had introduced them both to each other... They wouldn't have let her go without asking questions, too many questions. 

She knew Xanatos hadn't faked his shock about her sudden appearance and she knew she had just seen seven gargoyles resting on the parapets of the castle, so her daughter hadn't rested there during the day with her family, which was strange but maybe...

~ Too much of a risk. ~

Demona's thoughts wandered to Angela who surely was out there in the night, maybe protecting the humans like her father, that damned idiotic, pathetic, idealistic fool of a gargoyle, had taught her.

Once, back when she had allowed herself to be captured in the labyrinth, she had tried to change her daughter's mind, to show her that Goliath's path just led to the destruction of their race. However, her daughter had refused to listen or even to think about this and had instead asked her mother to give up her own way.

~ I should have known better, ~ Demona thought with a sigh. ~ She is too much like her father. ~

~ Goliath... ~ Demona clenched her fists when the picture of her former mate came into her mind. 

~ Why have you ever been so... naive? ~ She asked him mentally without expecting an answer. ~ Why did you have to teach our daughter to follow the path, which has lead to the destruction of so many of our kind before? ~

"Because you put the life of the humans not just equal with ours, but above ours." she answered her own question. 

He hadn't taken the clan with him that night since he wanted them to protect the humans, despite how they were treated by them, he had never even thought of stopping to protect them.

Demona felt a growl emitting in her throat, as she thought about that night and all the nights following it. 

~ It was his fault! ~ She thought angrily. ~ He should have listened to me, he should have taken us all with him... ~ 

Demona stopped, as it didn't matter any more, he didn't matter any more, his clan didn't matter anymore and Angela... had made her choice and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Mother?" 

  
Demona turned around to see Darlene standing at the window, looking on her.

Demona nodded. "I'm coming," she said, putting her thoughts in the back of her mind.

She entered the warehouse, following her daughter and looking around.

There stood her grandchildren, Jarred and Lana with Gem in her arms and they looked practically like they had when she had last seen them 6 months ago, besides the fact that they were now gargoyles... and that Gem had grown a lot since this time.

Jarred looked at his grandmother curiously, while Lana did so with open mistrust.

An unpleasant silence lay above the room until Darlene took a deep breath. 

"Well kids, this is your grandmother," she explained nervously, nervous on their reaction, especially after the look Lana had given her when she had explained to them how Demona had nearly killed mankind, included them. 

"This is Lana," Darlene explained to her mother, pointing at the beautiful young gargoyle before her. "My eldest."

Lana's face stayed suspicious.

"This is Gem my youngest," Darlene told her mother while taking her little hatchling out of Lana's arms, who laughed happily, glad to be in her mother's arms again.

"And this is Jarred." Darlene said finally, pointing to the last gargoyle in the room.

Jarred raised his hand and grinned sheepishly, unknowing of what else to do.

"Hello." he greeted. 

On this, the unpleasant silence continued until Jarred made the first step. 

"So, are you really 1000 years old?" he asked her.

Demona nodded. "1060 actually, I hatched in 938AD." 

"Wow, you don't look so old," Jarred stated in wonder.

"Darlene has surely told you about it," Demona told the brown-haired hatchling. "I'm immortal, therefore I'll always stay as physically old as I am now... around 35 in human turns." 

"Cool!" Jarred explained, excited.

Demona would have called this something other than cool, but she stayed quiet.

"And what do you do?" Lana asked. "I mean, besides trying to eradicate our race?" 

Demona looked into her granddaughter's eyes and saw that she had indeed a strong spirit. 

"Besides the fact that you are no longer human," she explained. "I have indeed stopped trying to do so... and concentrate on leading Nightstone, my firm."

"Are you as rich as Xanatos?" Jarred asked her.

Demona sighed with a short, predator-like smile. "Not yet, but soon."

"So, you are human during the day?" Lana asked.

Demona nodded shortly, her eyes showed that this was definitely no topic that she liked to speak about, but Lana ignored this.

"And can you make us human?" Lana asked. "At least during the day?"

Demona looked on her granddaughter and suppressed the urge to scream at her.

"No," she snarled, which made her granddaughter wince. "I don't know of any spell to restore the one your mother used in the first place to make herself human."

"But you are human!" Lana protested, ignoring the fact that her mind was advising her not to make someone, who was called *Demona*, angry.

"**I am a gargoyle!**" Demona shouted angrily, her eyes blazing red, "and believe me it wasn't my choice to turn into a human during the day. A damned useless Fay cursed me with it and **NO** I can't call him again since the mirror I used was..." she hesitated shortly, "…destroyed."

Angrily, Lana threw her arms in the air, cursing something that Darlene neither wanted to understand or to tolerate.

"Lana!" she told her eldest daughter firmly. "Not now!"

"Mom, why are we here?" Lana asked frustrated. "She can't change us back and maybe we'll have to stay this way forever."

She was near crying, so Darlene approached her daughter and embraced her softly, even when she hesitated.

"I will find a way to change us back, but I need time." she explained to her. "Your grandmother will help us and has offered us a place to live."

Lana sighed, a bit calmer, but not happier.

"Okay mom," she said finally, looking her mother in her blue sparkling eyes and then to her grandmother. "I hope your house is near, I can't glide anymore and I need a bath."

Demona looked with a raised eye-ridge to Darlene, who sighed.

"Well kids, actually there is one more thing I have to tell you...." she started.

****

03.01.98; 05:24; JFK-Airport New York:

Lana wasn't happy about it. She complained on their whole way to the airport and even when they arrived.

"Awww, mom!" she complained again. "Berlin! I mean okay, I know I've always wanted to visit Europe, like maybe London or Paris, but Berlin.... That is sooo province!"

Darlene, with a curious looking Gem in her arms, looked on her eldest daughter with hidden sympathy, as Berlin wasn't one of the top cities that she wanted to visit in her life either, but she wouldn't tell this to her children.

"You will see, Berlin has some advantages too." she explained and added mentally ~ and if I find them, I'll let you know. ~ 

"Yeah right mom." Lana told her sarcastically.

Before Darlene could reply, Demona interrupted her.

"Believe me, you won't miss anything," Demona remarked while leaning on a wall and studying the entrance of the airport. "London and Paris are much too expensive... the humans overrate the worth of their cities."

"You were there gran?" Jarred asked curiously, fascinated about his grandmother's life.

~ Gran?! ~ Demona thought and looked in surprise on her grandchild.

Finally she nodded. "Some times in my life."

~ And no happy ones. ~

"Come," she ordered her family. "I have ordered the plane and if we arrive too late then I'll have to pay more."

"Oh yes?!" Lana asked sarcastically and ignored the order in her mother's eyes to stay quiet. "And HOW shall we get in there? Shall we tell them that we are guys from a costume party?"

Demona glared on her granddaughter with red blazing eyes that made her move some steps backward until she touched her mother's skin.

"Come to me," Demona ordered her family, not taking her eyes off her oldest grandchild. "Then I'll show you."

They all came to her, even though Lana had to be lead by the claw of her mother.

Demona breathed deeply and gathered the strength she needed, finally she closed her eyes and raised her claw.

"Dea illisiona nosque formes altere in humon mutare."

Suddenly, they all felt a tingling sensation on all their skin.

"Whoa, what was that?" Jarred asked in surprised.

Lana meanwhile looked on her claw... which was a hand again. Quickly, she looked down on her body and saw that the rest of her body was in her familiar human form again.

She looked around and saw that they all weren't gargoyles no more, but a human family.

"We... We are human again!" she cried out of joy and jumped up, embracing her grandmother tightly with closed eyes, so as not to weep out of joy. "Thank you granny, thank you!!!" 

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself looking into an angry immortal gargress's face. She removed her arms quickly and looked on them just to notice that she had claws again and even the rest of her body had changed back.

Lana looked on her mother, her sister Gem and brother Jarred and saw that they were all still human.

"Wh... what has happened?" Lana asked, completely confused. "Why have I changed back?"

"Because you weren't human," Darlene explained quickly, before her mother could become even more upset. "It was just an illusion."

Lana's mood sank below zero, whereas Jarred's thoughts raced faster than his mouth could speak.

"You can do magic granny?" he asked and before Demona could even nod, he continued. "Can you teach me it? Please, please, please, please...." 

Since Demona knew that he wouldn't accept a *no* and was somehow happy by the thought of teaching her grandchild something, she nodded after a short look to Darlene, who at least didn't shake her head.

"Sure." 

"Who needs this trash if it can't change us back?" Lana asked with crossed arms, not even trying to hide her disappointment of not being human again.

"Without this trash you wouldn't even be here." Demona noted coldly. "Now keep quiet, I don't want to speak the spell a third time."

With closed eyes, she repeated the spell.

"Dea illisiona nosque formes altere in humon mutare."

Demona breathed out heavily when she had completed the spell and looked ahead, seeing Lana as a human again, like her own body was.

Darlene noticed her mother's exhaustion and rushed to her side. Trained well as a sorceress, she knew very well that those kinds of spells when spoken without a medium and the right preparations, they could be very exhausting and sometimes even led to death of the sorcerer.

But Demona didn't need her child's help and looked around to her family.

"Don't touch anything and don't let yourself be touched," she ordered. "Don't open your wings and hold your tail low, if someone steps on it then not only will you jump out in pain, but the illusion will also be destroyed."

Jarred nodded obediently while Lana grumbled angrily, but seemingly did nothing to destroy the illusion again. While looking down, Lana noticed that she was still wearing her regular clothes... correction, the clothes she had worn when she was still human. A white t-shirt, dark blue jeans and white jogging shoes. She even wore the same clothes under her illusion, except that she had just had to cut some holes in the original clothes for her tail and wings and didn't need any shoes.

"Come." Demona ordered and led her family into the airport, where a pilot in his usual uniform was already waiting for them.

"Miss Destine." the pilot greeted and after noticing the group behind her, he added. "You won't be traveling alone?"

Dominique Destine nodded coolly. 

"Indeed." she replied and waved one hand at Darlene. "This is my d..." Dominique bit her lip, as she couldn't call a woman, who was as seemingly old as herself, her daughter.

Her daughter had the right idea.

"I'm Darlene Anderson, her sister." she added quickly, holding Gem's invisible tail and preventing her baby daughter from chewing on it, which might destroy the illusion. "These are my children, Lana, Jarred and Gem."

Dominique, proud of her daughter's quick thinking, nodded and explained, "They'll be coming with me." 

The pilot knew better than to ask her more questions, especially when he saw the look in the CEO's eyes and after what he had heard of her, this was definitely not a very good idea. 

"My Co-pilot has already started the machines," the pilot explained. "Please follow me." 

While following the pilot through the halls of the now empty airport, Darlene neared her mother.

"I hope this was okay mother." she asked her mother silently and a bit unsure, but Dominique nodded. 

"It was very good." her mother assured her. "I have made my alter ego's family very large. Dominique has three sisters and a brother with still unknown names and ages, so it will be easy to add your name to this... and the fact that you're a widow with three children." 

Darlene looked ahead and thought about the situation. Now, when she had just lost the life she had built up in 20 years, her mother had made her existence legal. This had indeed been her problem for the whole time with Paul. She hadn't had any papers to proof her existence or even an education to find a job, so she had had to spend most of the time without any purpose. 

After just spending one week in their home alone, while Paul was working, it was enough to nearly drive her crazy. She hadn't worked in her former life, but she had been able to glide every night, which was a very good way to spend time. Besides that, she had also learned magic or taken training fights against her mother, which were boring after some time since she never had been able to defeat her mother. 

She had started to explore her new city and finally discovered a shop that mysteriously sold magical equipment. Bewildered by this and the fact that she had actually discovered something that she missed from her old life, she bought some books of lower magic that he offered and tried to find out more about the owner, he was a man in the middle of his life with dark brown hair and a pair of grayish eyes, which were signs of hidden knowledge. 

Darlene had tried to get information's about him by talking to him, but finally she noticed that he wouldn't give her any information and on the contrary, he started to try to learn more and more about her. So she had left the shop and never entered it again until she needed a book with the counter-spell to undo her finally running out transformation. 

The magic books had helped her to pass the time until the beginning of her pregnancy when she devoted herself completely to the child growing in her and banned the magic in the attic where she had kept them closed and hidden from her children until a few days before.

Now, looking on her eldest daughter, covered in an illusion spell and walking before her, she asked herself why she had done so. Sure, she had tried to hide her past from her children, but she could have told them about magic without showing them their true heritage. 

~ Even if Lana hadn't believed me, I could have summoned a spirit from somewhere ~ Darlene noted, ~ being taught in magic would surely have stopped her from becoming so unbelieving in it and would have prepared her for the whole truth. ~

She had forever told herself that she done what she did to protect her children, to offer them a normal human life without magic, gargoyles and such things. Now she knew she had been lying to herself, it wasn't a normal life she had given them, but a life which hadn't reminded herself on her old life. Magic was real, like life, love and death, but magic would have forever reminded her who and what she truly was and so she hadn't protected her children, but herself from this. 

She had even neglected to teach her children the basic knowledge in self-defense and this would have been a normal thing, just as it had been normal for her to have learned it from her mother. 

~ Ironic ~ Darlene thought, ~ in the end I could neither protect them nor me from the truth. ~

Darlene was so deep in thought that she did not notice that they had already arrived at the plane in the hall and the pilot offered her to go in.

Entering the cabin, Dominique turned to the pilot. 

"The flight will be 12 hours I assume?" she asked sharply.

"Yes," the pilot replied. "Due to the time shift, we will arrive a bit earlier tomorrow night than we have started." 

Dominique nodded, uncommonly pleased by what she heard from the human employee. 

"Good," she replied. "To make this clear, you will not come into our cabin during the flight, my family needs its private sphere." 

"I understand Miss Destine," the pilot replied. "Have a good flight."

With this, he vanished into the cockpit and left his employer and her family to themselves. 

"Okay kids, get into your seats and fasten your safety belts," Darlene ordered her children who followed obediently, while Dominique did the same.

Already on his seat and feeling the motors of the jet starting, Jarred looked to his mum pleadingly. 

"May I go to the cockpit when we are in the air?" he asked. "I've never been in a plane before!"

Darlene, taking care that Gem sat tightly in her lap, shook her head. 

"Sorry Jarred, the pilot might touch you and we can't risk being discovered." she explained. "It might even so destroy your grandmother's identity as Dominique Destine."

"I'll be careful!" he promised, but his mother stayed hard.

"No Jarred and that's the end of it," Darlene replied and the tone in her voice made clear that this discussion was over, before she added a bit softer. "But you can look out the window, you will see the view of New York from the air is great, or you can watch the TV."

Jarred wasn't really happy about this, but he kept quiet and looked out of the window to see how high the jet raised into the sky. 

Darlene looked to her eldest daughter and saw that she had already sunk into a model-magazine that had been laid there by the airline and not even trying to enjoy the flight. She had even sat one seat away from her mother to make clear that she had indeed not forgiven her for being so brutally torn from her old life and now from her country.

Darlene sighed. ~ Seems like I still have to talk to her, ~ she thought, but she knew that in Germany they would have plenty of time. 

Then she looked to her mother, who stared out of the window, seemingly caught in her own thoughts. Besides the few facts that she had told her about her life, her mother hadn't talked much to Darlene yet, something that she believed was still caused by her betrayal, but somehow she felt that there had to be more.

Suddenly the clouds vanished and offered a full view to the wonderful skyline of New York with the Empire State Building, the two towers of the World Trade Centre and, most impressive, the Eyrie tower, the highest building in the world with an ancient castle above it. 

That was then when Darlene noticed some muscles in her mother's body tense and she wondered why. Sure her mother had told her that the local clan lived there and the fact that it was the home of Nightstone's most eager business concurrence was an element even so, but somehow there was more. Darlene sensed this by looking into her mother's eyes and sensed that there was a secret there that her mother was not willing to reveal. 

She swore to herself to find out some day....

****

To be continued... 


End file.
